Joe Romm of Think Progress reports A New Wind Turbine Generates Back The Energy It Takes To Build It In Just 6 Months, based on a study just published by The European Photovoltaic Industry Association which says, “(d)epending on the type of PV system and the location of the installation, the EPBT at present is between 0.5 and 1.4 years.”

After doing a comprehensive study of the full life-cycle of 2 megawatt wind turbines researchers at Oregon State found their energy payback time comparable to solar photovoltaic systems which have fallen from 40 year to half a year to a year and half from 1970 to 2010.

A new study finds that wind turbines have an energy payback of 6 months, which is comparable to the best solar photovoltaic systems. In other words, in their first six months of operation, large wind turbines produce the same total amount of energy that was needed to produce and install them. …

The myth that wind and solar power are bad investments from an energy-payback perspective has been around for years. It even turned up in the error-riddled 2009 book “Superfreakonomics,” repeated by Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO of Microsoft.

It’s difficult to compare this to the energy payback time for fossil fuel plants, because not only do they require a great deal of energy to construct and fuel, they also cause climate change and mooch off of millions of years and heat and pressure provided by the earth.

Of course, decades ago, when manufacturers had not yet applied mass-production techniques to those then-nascent technologies, the energy payback time (EPBT) of renewables was considerably worse. That’s clear from this chart in “PE Magazine,” the lead publication of the National Society of Professional Engineers.

In general, the more sunlight at a solar installation the faster the energy payback. In the future, we can expect a continued improvement in energy payback. Year after year, renewable energy becomes a better and better investment.

Clive Palmer says the amendment he is demanding in return for his party’s Senate votes to repeal the carbon tax will include price reductions for large industrial power users that have direct contracts with generators, as well as for households.

He also suggested it could apply to businesses that put up prices due to the carbon tax, other than the electricity and gas companies covered by the competition watchdog’s price exploitation powers.

The government believes the additional powers it has given the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will ensure power price reductions are passed on to households when the carbon price is repealed, and that Palmer’s demands – while not necessary – will be easily met.

But Palmer insists his amendment to the carbon repeal bills will force companies to pass on savings. In an interview with Guardian Australia at the weekend, he suggested it would also apply to electricity contracts entered into by large industrial users, and possibly to companies other than electricity and gas providers.

“Our amendment makes it a requirement that people will have to pass on the power cost savings … not a voluntary situation, it doesn’t leave it up to the ACCC to decide at its discretion whether or not it wants to enforce this,” he said.

“It will apply to every Australian company … everybody under our jurisdiction … you don’t have to worry, it will apply to everyone,” he said, confirming it would apply to industrial contracts for power supply such as those signed by aluminium smelters.

Palmer said he was acting because as a businessman he knew businesses would be inclined not to pass on the savings, and would just “play around” with the regulator.

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Britain and Germany have broken records for generating solar electricity in the last few weeks, according to new industry figures.

Germany generated over half its electricity demand from solar for the first time ever on 9 June, and the UK, basking in the sunniest weather of summer during the longest days of the year, nearly doubled its 2013 peak solar power output at the solstice weekend.

France, Italy, Denmark and other countries are also believed to have generated record amounts in June.

According to UK trade body the Solar Trade association (STA), the total UK installed solar capacity generated from homes, buildings and solar farms is now about 4.7 gigawatts compared to 2.7GW in July last year.

It is not possible to tell exactly how much solar power was generated in Britain because electricity from small-scale household units is not centrally measured, but the STA estimated on Monday that 3.9% of the UK’s electricity demand was met by solar photovoltaic systems (PV) over the 24 hours of Saturday.

This means solar’s contribution peaked at a record 7.8% of daytime electricity, on 21 June, said the association.

“Britain has virtually doubled its capacity in the last year, with 80,000 more installations, including several thousand larger scale commercial ones,” said Ray Noble, a consultant at the UK National Solar Centre.

“There are now 530,000 installations in the UK, of which 510,000 are domestic small scale ones. Last weekend we estimate they generated about 8% of daytime electricity in total,” said Noble.

“We think that this is likely to double again within a year. There is nothing to stop it getting to 30-40% of UK electricity at this time of year,” he said.

The figures were welcomed by UK energy minister Greg Barker, who was criticised in May for removing subsidies for large-scale solar farms. “We have put ourselves among the world leaders on solar and this ambitious strategy will place us right at the cutting edge.

“There is massive potential to turn our large buildings into power stations and we must seize the opportunity this offers to boost our economy as part of our long term economic plan.

“Solar not only benefits the environment, it will see British job creation and deliver the clean and reliable energy supplies that the country needs at the lowest possible cost to consumers.”

UK spending on large-scale projects is expected to increase by 60% in the next ten years, rising from £70bn to £106bn, according to a report by Big Four firm PwC

Spending on power and water is predicted to more than double, from a current £11bn to £27bn per year; spending on transportation will see similar increases, rising from £12bn to £23bn annually.

Richard Abadie, PwC’s global leader of capital projects and infrastructure (CP&I) said the spending would be critical to maintain the UK’s global edge.

Abadie said, “It is telling that social infrastructure spending accounts for about a third of total spending currently despite the perception of cutbacks in this area.

“Nevertheless, we expect transport and power to be the growth sectors up to 2025 with transport doubling and power generation nearly tripling. This spending will be critical to ensuring economic growth in the UK and global competitiveness.”

Commercial energy watchdog Ofgem will unveil plans for the largest ever investigation into the energy market next week, with potentially huge knock-on effects. Public anger over increasing bills and complicated invoicing has led Ofgem to lay out plans for an eighteen-month long inquiry into claims of profiteering and coordination between suppliers to decrease competition.

On the OTC market, day-ahead baseload dropped to the lowest value since April 2010 at GBP35.20/MWh, while the peakload next day power price fell to GBP38.85/MWh before the Platts 11:00 BST close on Monday, both shedding more than one pound from Friday’s assessment.

UK spot power prices on the base and peak reached a new four year low on Monday, the weakest since April 6, 2010 when the contracts were assessed at GBP34.50/MWh and GBP38.50/MWh respectively, according to Platts data.

The UK solar sector could be set for a round of audits as part of an enforcement effort of the EU-China price undertaking, according to a senior industry figure.The agreement currently calls on Chinese modules to be sold into the EU for no less than €0.53/W. Stories of various workarounds to the rules have circulated widely in the industry since the undertaking came into force at the turn of the year.Writing for Solar Power Portal, Jerry Hamilton, director of renewables and energy solutions, Rexel Energy Solutions warned that impending enforcement efforts could mean hefty penalties for those circumventing the rules.“Suggestions are strong that audits will commence as early as next month to establish where any breaches in the anti-dumping agreement have occurred,” he said in his Renewable Jerry blog.

A site the size of almost nine football pitches could be turned into a huge solar farm at a major Lancashire business zone.BAE Systems is set to submit plans to install 10,000 solar panels on part of a disused runway at its Samlesbury site, near Preston.The project will involve more than 13 acres of panels on its land, expected to supply up to 25 per cent of the electricity demand for the aerospace giant.BAE will submit the proposal to South Ribble Council this week to install the panels at its military aircraft manufacturing site.The panels will cover 13.30 acres – equivalent to about nine football pitches – and generate 2MW of peak electrical output.The 2.5m high solar panels will be located on an area of the site which includes a portion of the old runway.BAE chiefs said woodland on either side of the runway would provide natural screening from most locations in the area.

Monday, 23 June 2014

It appears that British Gas’s support team suffered a social media hack earlier today, which saw their Twitter account compromised by online criminals.The account @BritishGasHelp is normally busy helping people with boiler breakdowns, so it was curious to see some strange tweets coming from the company:

Staff and directors at energy management specialists Utilitywise are in for a £30m payout after selling off up to 10 million shares as part of an incentive scheme.The South Shields based business, which employs around 800 staff including 640 in the North East, has run a Long Term Incentive Plan, which has now matured.As a result, the firm said certain directors and employees and a former director, intend to sell up to 10,350,525 ordinary shares of 0.1p in the company.With a share price of 290.87p in early trading yesterday, that placing would deliver a £30m return.The company said: “The completion of the placing and the resulting directors shareholdings will be announced as soon as practicable.”The announcement on the AIM stock exchange came as it emerged the British Chambers of Commerce BCC and Utilitywise have agreed to partner on a pilot programme in response to business concerns over volatile energy prices.

As part of the National Heat Pump Awards, the honour for the Public Sector Project of the Year was awarded to Star Renewable Energy for its ground-breaking development of the world’s largest zero carbon 90oC district heat pump in Norway.

The nomination saw Star pitched against the likes of industry rivals such as Daikin, Mitsubishi and Danfoss

Star Renewable Energy is the recent business venture of Star Refrigeration, the UK’s largest independent industrial refrigeration engineering contractor, which was established in Scotland in 1970.

The judges said: “Star have achieved temperatures previously thought impossible. This alone should bring heatpumps closer to the entire market, but in doing so with only “future proof” natural working fluids is even more spectacular. As the Drammen project in Norway demonstrates, any building in Britain can harness local heat and avoid burning gas.

Tuesday, 17 June 2014

Coal has reached its highest market share of global energy consumption for more than 40 years, figures reveal, despite fears that its high carbon emissions make it a prime cause of climate change.

The use of coal for power generation and other purposes grew by 3% in 2013 – faster than any other fossil fuel – while its share of the market breached 30% for the first time since 1970, the BP Statistical Review reports.

The figures were published as Prof Nick Stern, author of the influential climate change report the Stern Review, said his latest research indicated the economic risks of unchecked climate change were bigger than previously estimated.

Europe is among the regions using more coal, increasing imports from the US, where coal has been displaced in power stations by even cheaper shale gas. But developing countries such as China and India are also huge coal users, although BP pointed out that energy growth overall in China dropped to 4.7% last year from 8.4% in 2012.

Christof Ruhl, BP’s chief economist and author of its statistical review, said this “dramatic slowdown” put a question mark over China’s official economic growth figure for 2013 of 7.7%.

The accuracy of Chinese economic statistics have long been a subject for debate but few are willing to directly challenge them for fear of upsetting such an important emerging powerhouse.

“It is not easy to reconcile the slowdown in energy growth numbers and official [gross domestic product] numbers … you can draw your own conclusions from that,”Ruhl said.

Monday, 16 June 2014

European power forwards on Monday traded higher in reflection of firmer gas prices, which responded to the unresolved row between Europe’s main gas supplier Russia and transit country Ukraine over unpaid bills.

“Clearly the uncertainties must be priced into power but don’t forget that prices had been low, so this morning’s advances are not surprising,” a curve trader said.

The German Cal 2015 baseload power contract for next-year delivery was up 63 cents from Friday levels at 34.83 euros ($47.4) per megawatt-hour, a near seven-week high after 34.95 euros on April 30.

The bid-ask range of the equivalent French contract was 42.13 euros, up 12 cents from Friday.

After unsuccessful weekend discussions in the long-standing row, Russia’s Gazprom said Ukraine had failed to pay at least part of its gas debts by a 0600 GMT deadline and would now have to pay up front for deliveries, suggesting that supplies could be cut.

Generators factor in prices of gas and coal as they show the cost of feedstock for thermal power, and also carbon emissions rights which are levied on burning fuels for electricity.

Consumers will be able to switch energy suppliers in just three days by the end of the year under radical new switching rules unveiled by Ofgem today.

In the latest assault by the regulator on high gas and electricity prices, Ofgem has said the new system will boost consumers’ confidence to vote with their feet if bills are too high.

“Consumers can change their bank in seven days, their mobile phone in just a couple but have to wait significantly longer to switch their energy supplier,” said Dermot Nolan, chief executive of Ofgem. “We know that consumers want a reliable and efficient switching process and that concerns about it going wrong can put them off shopping around for a better deal. So following the steps we have made to make the market simpler, clearer, fairer, we are now leading a programme which will deliver faster, more reliable switching.”

Under the current system, it takes around five weeks to switch energy suppliers, including a statutory two week “cooling off” period in which consumers can return to their previous company.

Ofgem has said the cooling off period will stay but switching must take place three days after the two weeks have ended. The regulator said it wants to introduce next day switching by 2018.

The lease will allow installation of multiple anchored floating test berths on the US outer continental shelf, 13 miles (22 kilometres) offshore from Broward County, Florida. Each berth consists of a buoy anchored to the sea floor allowing ocean current prototypes, of up to 100KW generation capacity, to be deployed from vessels moored in the Gulf Stream for a few weeks at a time.

“This project is a potentially paradigm-shifting development in the global quest for clean energy sources and puts South Florida at the forefront of research in this critical effort” said FAU President John Kelly. “It also demonstrates the multidisciplinary nature of marine renewable’s research, a successful public, private partnership and FAU’s international leadership in the field.”

Wednesday, 11 June 2014

When combining all of the world’s countries, 18 percent of the world’s electricity consumption comes from renewable sources. A global agency estimates that amount could be doubled in a little more than 15 years while saving a combined $740 billion per year in the process.The latest study, REmap 2030, from the International Renewable Energy Agency IRENA estimates that amping up renewables to constitute 36 percent of the international energy mix would more than offset the costs associated with fossil fuel pollution. It would also reduce the global demand for oil and gas by about 15 percent, and for coal by 26 percent.Some of the graphics within REmap include annual investment needs and percentage breakdowns in doubling renewables’ share of the world’s TFEC—total final energy consumption—by 2030.

Tuesday, 10 June 2014

In 2012, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast that the US would outpace Saudi Arabia in oil production thanks to the shale boom by 2020, becoming a net exporter by 2030. The forecast was seen by many as decisive evidence of the renewal of the oil age, while informed detractors were at best ignored, at worst ridiculed.

Among my many reports exposing the geological and economic fallacies behind the shale boom narrative are this, this, this and this.

Even here on the Guardian, one headline declared the IEA report shows that “peak oil idea has gone up in flames.”

But the IEA’s latest assessment has proved the detractors right all along. The agency’s World Energy Investment Outlook released this week says that US tight oil production – which draws largely from the Bakken in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford in Texas – will peak around 2020 before declining.

The new analysis puts an end to the ’100 year supply’ myth widely promulgated by industry, and moves closer to the more sceptical assessment of a US tight oil peak within this decade.

The UK’s smart meter rollout could cost £1.5 billion more than expected, a National Audit Office (NAO) report has revealed.

The smart metering implementation programme, led by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), aims to rollout over 50 million smart electricity and gas meters to all domestic properties and smart or advanced meters to smaller non-domestic sites in the UK by the end of 2020.

Irish independent energy supplier Vayu today announced its expansion into the UK. Targeting the business gas market, Vayu will provide natural gas and energy services to businesses across the UK’s industrial and commercial sector. Vayu has grown steadily since 2003, when it became the first independent supplier to be awarded a gas shipping and supply license in Ireland. The company now supplies 22pc of Ireland’s largest natural gas business users and 15pc of the mid-sized gas user segment.

Gas customers include companies such as Tesco, IBM, Debenhams and DHL.

Liam Faulkner, Commercial Director of Vayu says the company is focused on becoming a leading provider of gas and energy procurement solutions to businesses across the UK, giving customers a competitive alternative to other suppliers in the sector.

The announcement sees Vayu become the first Irish energy supplier to target the UK business gas sector. Valued at nearly E9bn, the sector is almost ten times the size of the sector in Ireland and offers significant growth potential for Vayu.

“We believe there remains a large untapped opportunity to deliver new services into the UK market,” says Mr Faulkner.

“Vayu will be investing heavily in winning customers by changing the way UK businesses view their energy-related decisions and empowering customers to become more active in the area of energy procurement and demand management.”

“We have established a business model that has worked exceptionally well in Ireland, creating flexibility for gas users that wasn’t there previously. Our model is highly transferable – similar to the approach used by telecoms – which means we can follow our existing customers into the UK while also pursuing new business wins in this market.”

Monday, 9 June 2014

Europe’s drive toward a power system based on renewable energy has gone so far that output will probably need to be cut within months because of oversupply.

Network operators are likely to curb solar and wind generation at times of low demand to prevent overloading the region’s 188,000 miles (302,557 kilometers) of power lines, Entso-e, the grid association in Brussels, said last month. Renewable output is poised to almost double to 18 percent by 2020, according to Energy Brainpool GmbH & Co. KG, a consulting firm in Berlin.

Europe’s fivefold surge in green energy in the past decade pushed prices to a nine-year low and wiped out $400 billion in market value of utilities from Germany’s RWE AG to GDF Suez SA in Paris. There’s so much power available on windy and sunny days in Germany and Austria that the number of hours producers had to pay consumers to use it doubled in the first five months of 2014, data from the Epex Spot SE exchange in Paris show.

“The system is costly and we need intelligent answers,” Johannes Teyssen, chief executive officer of Dusseldorf, Germany-based EON SE, said June 2 in an interview at the Eurelectric conference in London. “There are some hours where it is inevitable that we will be oversupplied.”

Scotland has a new gas industry waiting to be developed on its doorstep, leaders of the Scottish National Party have been told.

Algy Cluff, chairman and chief executive of Aim-listed Cluff Natural Resources, has raised the prospect of the huge coal reserves under the Firth of Forth providing a new source of gas for power stations and industry. He has had discussions with Fergus Ewing, the Scottish energy minister, about its potential contribution to the economy.

Energy is one of the central issues in the debate on Scottish independence. The Treasury argues that estimates of future North Sea oil and gas revenues are too optimistic but the emergence of a new gas source has not figured in any calculations. Mr Cluff is emphasising that he is not making a political point and sees the Firth of Forth development providing benefits north and south of the border.

He is due to visit the Grangemouth refinery and chemical complex run by Ineos on Tuesday in an effort to persuade the group to switch from imported shale to using Firth of Forth gas to underpin the long-term future of one of the most important businesses in Scotland.

Mr Cluff has spent the past 18 months setting up the framework for the business and preparing for the start of drilling but has been frustrated by the focus on shale. Mr Cluff, a serial entrepreneur with a North Sea oil and gold-mining background, feels the coal reservoirs under the Firth of Forth and off the Cumbrian coast offer the best initial development opportunities.

Friday, 6 June 2014

British spot gas prices dropped to 40 pence a therm for the first time since October 2010 on Thursday morning as low demand and healthy supplies continued to weigh on the market.

Wholesale UK gas prices for delivery the next day traded at 40 pence per therm at 0730 GMT on Thursday, their lowest level since October 7 2010.

The renewed drop also means that British spot gas prices have shed 40 percent in value since the beginning of the year.

Traders said that the low gas prices were a result of high stocks following a mild winter and spring as well as healthy pipeline and shipped liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies.

Research company Energy Aspects said that prices could drop to 38 pence a therm once maintenance work at Britain’s main pipeline connection to continental Europe (IUK) this month prevents excess gas to be exported.

AN energy firm has said it is not planning any more solar farms in Oxfordshire because the national electricity grid cannot cope.Green Energy UK Direct currently has two projects it is pursuing in the county, one in Culham and one near Bicester.But operations manager Neil Banks said the company would now look to North England for future investments after dropping plans for five other sites in Oxfordshire.Mr Banks said: “The feedback we are getting from the distribution network operator DNO, SSE, is that the network is getting quite full.